Page 16 of Sunrise Arrows

“No buts! Doom and Gloom are gone, and we need to cut loose.”

I gesture to the TV where Zoe and Wade are having another tension filled moment.

“You’ve watched this show like a half dozen times on the tour. We all know what happens after they sleep together.” She points at me, face stern and brow raised when I open my mouth. “No! Put the ice cream down… now the rosé… and get your well toned ass off this couch. Good girl.”

“Briar—”

“Don’t, ‘Briar,’ me with those sad eyes,” she cuts off. Grasping my shoulders, she hunches so we’re at eye level and lays out her battle plan. “As your best friend, it is my job and expectation to pull you out of this and bolster you back up.

“Now here’s what’s gonna happen: you’re going to get a shower. Then I’m going to do your hair and makeup and put you into something flirty. After that, we’re going to handle this situation like the bad ass, modern women we are. By getting tipsy on pretty cocktails in a bar and letting some, like, cowboys or farmers or whatever they have here get a little handsy while we give them sloppy, drunk girl kisses on the dancefloor. And if that leads to youfinallygetting under a new man to get over this one, then all the better.”

She turns me around and slaps me on the ass, shouting, “Now march!” calling after me as I grumble and stomp up the stairs, “If you aren’t done in fifteen minutes, I’m coming in, Tinsley.Fifteen minutes,you hear me?”

“Yes, Mom,” I mutter, entering my bedroom.

“I heard that!”

* * *

“Thank you, Ames!”Briar and I chorus, accepting our latest round of shots and margaritas—classic and on the rocks for her and strawberry and frozen for me—from the owner of Dark Horse.

Tipping his head at us, he smiles, “You’re most welcome, ladies.”

We hold up our tequila shots, clink them together, and throw them back, finishing off with savage bites into salted limes. I hiss at the hot burn, stomping my feet on the barstool’s railing while shaking my head, eyes scrunched closed. When the intensity subsides, I sip from the ice water Ames has been scooching towards us all evening before taking a hearty sip of the far sweeter margarita.

I set the glass back down, the blended liquid sloshing over the rim and making me giggle. After four previous shots, three other margaritas, and finishing off the bottle of sparkling wine while getting ready, I’m definitely tipsy. Probably outright drunk.

“Next question,” I say a bit too loudly, tipping over onto Briar’s shoulder as I laugh more.

When we arrived and she started asking about Archer, I told her I was nowhere near drunk enough to get into our history. Thus started our shots-for-questions game. For every one we do, I’ll answer a direct question she asks.

Briar straightens me up, her blue eyes bright and shiny. Hands on my shoulders she loudly whispers, “Was he your first?”

“Shhh,” I sloppily admonish, reaching first over then under her arm, my coordination severely lacking as I try to grab another bacon, cheddar, and ranch smothered French fry that Ames dropped in front of us at some point, commanding us to eat. I pop it in my mouth, moaning at the greasy taste, and after wiping my fingers on a cocktail napkin, answer, “He was. He was my first everything. I’d never had sex or done any of the fun beneath the clothes stuff before him.” My mouth turns down and my face scrunches up. “I hadn’t even been kissed until him. He was everything, Briar.Every-fucking-thingto me. I loved himsomuch. Like, take his last name and have his babies, loved him.”

“Why’d you…” She pauses to lick the rim of her margarita before taking several healthy glugs. When she’s done, she lets out a loud belch making me cackle into the bartop. From behind the counter, Ames is laughing, too, as he pours a beer. “Oh my god, excuse me, that was gross. Anyway—hey don’t laugh at me.” She points to Ames and me. “It’s not nice. Anyway, why’d you leave?”

“I was stupid and scared and terrible!” I wail, letting my head drop with a thud onto the polished wood. “Ow.”

“Shit Tinsel, you okay?” Ames asks, smoothing my hair from the side of my face.

“She hates being called that,” Briar informs, playing with the ends of my hair. “Last guy to say that got his car keyed.”

Ames snorts, “Bullshit. We’ve always called her Tinsel—Ryder, Hunter, and me. So pretty and sparkly.”

“That hillbilly had a nickname for you?”

“It’s true,” I confirm, head still down. “Hunter didn’t always wish me a painful, miserable life, before dying a slow, agonizing death. Shocking, I know.” I peek up at Ames and finally break my resolve not to ask about Archer. “How is he? Is he happy?”

Outside of Ryder and Hunter, Ames is Archer’s best friend. They grew up together and, except for when Archer went away for college, have been as inseparable as Archer is with his brothers.

“He was fucked up when you left,” he answers with brutal honesty. “I’ve never seen him so broken. You were the air he fuckin’ breathed, Tins. He would have followed you to the ends of the earth, and you left. Didn’t even tell him goodbye. But yeah, he’s happy.” He taps a finger on the bartop, drawing my head up to look at him. “Don’t hurt him again, Tinsley.”

“Well, I’m not a homewrecker, so you don’t have to worry about that,” I say, finally straightening back up. I lift my margarita up in his direction and mockingly toast, “The only heart that remains broken in this situation is mine,” chugging the mixed liquor down until my brain freezes.

“Homewrecker?”

“Yeah, you know, like a woman who comes in and destroys a marriage,” Briar answers, but Ames doesn’t hear her because he’s shouting at someone.

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